I finished another Tough Mudder run this past weekend. It is my third this year and they are getting easier. They are in no way easy, but definitely easier. It is a great challenge and the event is populated by happy, positive people. Finding ways to move the body and spend time with good and happy people is a sure way to live a better life.
by Matt Pasquinilli and Dennis Schaefer
Whether you hire instructors from within your student body, hire Black Belts from outside your school, or train them from scratch solely for the purpose of teaching like you do, you must have a system for training them to be effective and professional employees. There are specific attributes that we look for in an instructor candidate. These attributes are usually predictors of future success. Few people ever earn a Black Belt and even fewer become good instructors. Hiring the right people and training them to teach allows you to start with a person most likely to become a great instructor.
Tip 34 – Hiring Instructors
Hire the right person and teach them how to teach martial arts. The attributes that we look for in a great instructor are kindness, compassion, energy, excitement, and great communication skills. While we do have some Black Belts who also possess these attributes, our success has come from finding a fun, mature, professional person with an open mind who is looking for a meaningful job with good pay and decent benefits. Write a list of attributes that you think would help a person be successful as a martial arts instructor and then start looking for that person. Ask the professional people that you already know if they know of someone who might fit your description, and then set up an interview.
Tip 35 – Meeting with Your Instructors
Organize short, weekly meetings for your instructors. The weekly meetings allow you to pass on information and find out what issues your instructors might be struggling with. It also keeps everyone on the same page as far as curriculum and teaching. During our weekly meetings, we are often brainstorming ways to handle problems that might be happening in class. It gives everyone a sense of ownership and support. Ideas and solutions flow freely and everyone leaves feeling like they are ready for a new week of teaching.
Tip 36 – Training Sessions
Plan monthly training sessions for your instructors. Monthly training should be hands on with a lot of role playing. These training sessions are usually two or three hours long. All of our staff members are required to attend and are paid for their time. Each month we introduce or reintroduce one or two new drills to keep classes fresh and exciting. Our role playing focuses on behavior issues that might happen in class or cover brief, “mat chats” where instructors develop short, 30 second scripts to talk to students about the tenets of our training and how it can be used at home, work, or school.
Tip 37 – Lead by Example
Teaching by example is mandatory and requires that instructors practice martial arts and the martial arts spirit each day, know the curriculum, and constantly monitor and evaluate their behavior. This includes you, the school owner and head instructor.
Matt Pasquinilli is the Executive Director of the non profit Asian Arts Center Taekwondo School in Dayton, Ohio. Dennis Schaefer is a professional martial arts instructor and author living in Oakwood, Ohio. www.aacdayton.com, www.aacdayton.ning.com
by Matt Pasquinilli and Dennis Schaefer
Keep your interior design uniform, attractive, and simple. It should not look like your home or some arts and crafts store. Don’t pick up outdated or broken furniture from garage sales or the side of the street. Find comfortable, easy to clean seating that will promote the idea that you are professional in your approach to operating your business.
Tip 11 – Keep Your Trophies at Home
Build yourself a trophy room in your home to display your trophies, but don’t clutter your school with them. They break easily, gather tons of dust, and are usually only meaningful to you. New prospects won’t care if you or your students win tournaments, they really only care about how you can help them accomplish their goals. If their goal is to win tournaments, show them your scrapbook of photos and news stories about your past glory.
Tip 12 – NO LAWN FURNITURE
Please do not use molded plastic lawn furniture. It looks and feels cheap and will give new prospects a bad first impression. Invest in real office furniture. Most cities have resellers of used, well-maintained office chairs that have a lot of life left in them and look good when you are getting started in your business. Find them online or in the phone book.
Tip 13 – Keep Your Bathrooms Clean!
Start with your bathrooms. You must have someone wipe down the surfaces of your bathrooms everyday. Use a good disinfectant to keep it smelling clean. The boy’s bathroom must be mopped everyday because boys pee on the floor. We like to mop the girl’s bathroom everyday, too, because it makes it smell nice and clean. Clean bathrooms are a sign of a professional business and will set you apart from most of your competition.
Tip 14 – Keeping It Clean
Hire a cleaning company for at least one day a week. We have janitorial staff members who are responsible for cleaning the school five days a week. We have a lot of members and if we don’t have the floors vacuumed, trash emptied, and the furniture dusted every day, our business quickly looks sloppy and uncared for. When we started the school, we used a commercial cleaning company once a week. It was inexpensive and allowed us to focus on teaching and professionally managing the business. Go visit any of the businesses you support and respect and look for dirt and clutter. You won’t find any in the businesses that are booming and offer great customer service.
Matt Pasquinilli is Executive Director of the non profit Asian Arts Center Taekwondo School in Dayton, Ohio. Dennis Schaefer is a professional martial artist living in Oakwood, Ohio. www.aacdayton.com
What causes us to grow in body and mind, or in spirit and emotional intelligence? Can you find inspiration every day? How do you live your life every moment of every day to invite inspiration, challenge, and growth? Take a look at this video by Jason Wingrove showing a few moments in the daily lives of members of the Bondi Icebergs Club at Bondi Beach in Sydney, Australia. What can you do today that would challenge you or inspire you to grow and live more fully in every moment of every day?
Curl curl from Jason Wingrove on Vimeo.
by Dennis Schaefer
At our martial arts school every day presents a new opportunity for customer service. With our student population approaching 300 students and our parent population approaching 600- assuming most students have at least 2 adults involved most of the time- my job as school manager keeps me hopping.
Our philosophy involves parent investment and participation in assuring that their children/students are practicing the behavior and habits that true martial artists practice at home and school as well as here at the dojang. My communication with parent begins the first day the student comes to try class and continues as long as the student continues to study. That initial meeting also begins the process of customer service that keeps our retention rate at about 80%.
In that first parent conference, I give the parent a chance to speak first, to tell me how they heard about our school and what prompted them to give us a try. That way I can immediately respond to their needs by addressing how our school can meet them, rather than throwing out a bunch of information that may or may not be important to them. It personalizes the process from the beginning and starts the vital parent investment.
I do try to narrow the conversation to avoid comparisons to other schools or martial arts programs. It is much safer to explain our expertise than to get into judgments about other schools or programs. I prefer to let our school’s success – enrollment numbers and retention rate-speak for itself.
Parents are invited to take a tour of our school, to see what’s happening in other classrooms, then to watch their child’s class. Watching is encouraged, once again to start the process of investment in the program.
Our instructors are trained to spend the valuable time immediately before and after class to chat with the parents about their student’s progress and possible challenges. This includes their performance at home and school. It is also an excellent time to work with individual students on their forms. We try to maximize the number of times we recognize individual students by name.
Customer service continues with a space on each student’s test form for parent comments on both what we are doing right and areas they feel could be improved. We also do a yearly survey of parent’s satisfaction.
Communication is facilitated by a monthly online newsletter and a number of bulletin boards throughout the school. We have designated employees who handle questions on specific topics such as fees, schedules and student progress.
Each potential student who starts our 2 week free trial receives a hand written post card in the mail with an individualized message, welcoming them back. We also try to recognize birthdays. Students who have been missing from class for more than a couple of weeks receive a phone call or e-mail to check up on their status.
Keeping our facilities clean and comfortable, equipment repaired and up-to-date and staff well trained are also a vital part of our customer service mission.
There is no substitute for immediate and continuing communication with both parent and student. The sooner they realize the benefits on both levels, the more likely that you will continue a long and fruitful relationship.
Dennis Shaefer is the Operations Manager at the non profit Asian Arts Center Taekwondo School in Dayton, Ohio. www.aacdaton.com
by Matt Pasquinilli and Dennis Shaefer
Finding a location will require a lot of research. We have known many business owners, both in our industry and other industries, who don’t do any research. Instead, they drive by an empty storefront or commercial building and fall in love with the idea of having their business there. They call a broker, sign on the line, and only realize months later that it is not ideal for their type of business or the customers they want to serve. While you might be fortunate and find a great location that happens to be near your house or on the driving route to your current day job, if you don’t do some research and take the following tips into account, you might be making success in your business an impossible or needlessly difficult task.
Tip 8 – Target Demographics
You should identify the market you want to serve and study the demographic makeup of that area. Consider household income, number of children per household, nature of surrounding businesses, average real estate prices and turnover rates, existing recreational facilities, recent trends in population and business, etc. This information can be obtained on-line from the US Census Bureau and other more specific sources. This will help you to map the prime spots for your first location.
Tip 9 – Careful Consideration of Real Estate
Consider the fact that commercial real estate lease rates can be affected by a number of influences. Sometimes a “deal” isn’t really a deal at all. Remember that you will be serving families with children and most classes will be held after work hours. What happens to the neighborhood after dark? Will parking be a problem? Is there room for growth?
Tip 10 – Do Your Research
Talk to neighboring business owners and tenants who lease from the same landlord you are considering. Shop around for the best commercial realtor. Some landlords are willing to let you do your own renovation if the space isn’t ideal for your purpose. You can negotiate several free months of rent in exchange for doing the work yourself. Be sure to check local zoning regulations first.
Matt Pasquinilli is the Executive Director of the non profit Asian Arts Center Taekwondo School in Dayton, Ohio. Dennis Shaefer is a profesional martial artist living in Oakwood, Ohio.